''I'll be darned; I used to live on that same street,'' he says excitedly, referring to a period more than 30 years ago. ''In an apartment? What's your address?''

I tell him.

''Oh, I was at 1047 North. Near, not Clinton, Santa Monica.''

His wife of three years, Melinda, chimes in: ''See, people never think he remembers his past. We've had so many lawsuits, and these attorneys come in thinking he probably won't remember anything, and he just blows them away. What was your batting average in high school, Brian?''

''About .169,'' Mr. Wilson blurts.

Brian Wilson is back. That is, he's back again. Brian Wilson has been back a lot over the last two decades, and every time, it is hailed as a return to form after years of mental instability.

There is a myth engulfing Brian Wilson, and it is something he will have to deal with in marketing campaigns for the rest of his life. Myths aren't necessarily fabricated stories; they're just extraordinary tales representative of larger societal themes and trends. Mr. Wilson's is a tale of a genius gone mad, locked inside the prison of his own mind. It begins in an age of many myths -- the 60's -- and it goes something like this:

One sunny day in California, Brian Wilson, his brothers and some friends decided to make sunny California pop about surfing, cars and girls. But Brian Wilson wasn't happy just making pop about surfing, cars and girls. He wanted more, and eventually he found it, making a pop masterpiece, ''Pet Sounds,'' and leaving unfinished an even more ambitious one, a pop-music equivalent of Mozart's Requiem called ''Smile.'' During this musically heroic journey, he suffered a nervous breakdown and soon retired to his bed, where he spent years in isolation. And that's where our story begins.

In 1976, Mr. Wilson was back with a new Beach Boys album; then he was back in 1983 as a touring member of the Beach Boys, and then he was back in 1988 with a solo album produced with his then-therapist Eugene Landy. And throughout the 90's he has been back with increasing frequency. In the last three years, he has recorded new versions of his old songs for a Don Was documentary about him, ''I Just Wasn't Made for These Times''; reunited with Carnie and Wendy, his estranged daughters from a previous marriage, to help with their album ''The Wilsons''; teamed up with his ''Smile'' songwriting partner, Van Dyke Parks for, the record ''Orange Crate Art,'' and last week released the latest and best of these albums, ''Imagination,'' with the producer Joe Thomas.

Every time Mr. Wilson returns, he is heralded by a new Brian-is-back marketing campaign and propped up by a collaborator who may or may not have his best interests at heart. (He is currently, for example, settling a lawsuit with Dr. Landy for the return of his songwriting royalties.) In the rare glimpses the public gets of him every time he returns, Mr. Wilson looks and sounds better. In the 1994 documentary ''Theremin,'' Mr. Wilson spends several minutes trying to stammer a single phrase. Just a year later, in the Don Was documentary, he is more communicative but still clearly struggling with himself. ''I thought once in a while my face had a twist of emotional pain coming out of it, but not too obvious,'' Mr. Wilson jokes about the documentary now.

Today, thanks to a new doctor, new medication and a new family, Mr. Wilson seems like a gentle 55-year-old, more innocent than disturbed. In conversation, sitting in shorts and a T-shirt in his new home studio in St. Charles, a Chicago suburb (his main residence, of course, being in California), he comes in and out of focus. When he is engaged, he is perceptive, sincere and very funny. He tells a story about the only time he spanked his pudgy daughter, Carnie: she made two peanut butter sandwiches when he told her she was only allowed to have one. When Mr. Wilson isn't engaged, he's quiet, absent-minded and dreamy. At one point, he stops midthought and asks that his comment be stricken from the record because he forgot he was being interviewed.

Considering the losses Mr. Wilson has suffered lately, his improvement is remarkable. ''Brian and I, we had a tough year last year,'' his wife said. ''In four months, I lost my dad and he lost his mother and his brother.'' Since the death of Mr. Wilson's brother Carl (who died of cancer this year), Mr. Wilson is now without parents and the brothers he formed the band with.

Many fans have attributed Mr. Wilson's breakdowns, nervousness and reclusiveness to his drug use in the mid-60's, but Mr. Wilson and his wife both said that they felt the problems were more deeply rooted. Speaking about his father, who was also his manager, Brian Wilson said: ''He fouled my brain up. I went out in life scared as hell. Everybody that I looked at was my dad looking back at me. He beat me up, you know. It was as traumatic as hell. I really went through a bad, bad, bad childhood.''

MR. WILSON'S family today works as a better support system. He met Melinda, a former used-car saleswoman, at an event she describes as choreographed by Dr. Landy. He took Mr. Wilson to buy what Mrs. Wilson recalls as ''an ugly brown car,'' and then Dr. Landy asked her out on a date with Mr. Wilson. The meeting turned out better than expected; the two married and now live with two adopted daughters.

''Brian's improvement today compared to when I met him four years ago has doubled,'' said his producer, Mr. Thomas, who lives next door to the Wilsons in St. Charles. ''He's more at peace with himself, he's way more focused than he was early on, and building a good relationship with Melinda and the kids has really allowed him to concentrate on being a whole person rather than just this genius locked-away musician guy. The fact that he got on stage after so long was in itself an achievement.''

Last month at the Cultural Arts Center in St. Charles, Mr. Wilson performed what was promoted as his first solo concert. More a taping for VH1 than a concert, Mr. Wilson harmonized with backup recordings on new solo songs and Beach Boys classics and sat in front of a fake piano, pretending to play as a string section and as many as nine other musicians (including his Beach Boys replacement, Bruce Johnston) accompanied him. At first, Mr. Wilson was silent and nervous. But several songs into the show, Mr. Thomas whispered something in his ear and Mr. Wilson came to life, talking with the crowd and singing less reticently.

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Mr. Wilson's new album, ''Imagination'' (Giant), is being marketed as a ''rebirth'' of the ''Pet Sounds'' era. It is not the first time, nor will it be the last, that such a claim is made for Mr. Wilson's later work. It is the logical next stage in the myth of Brian Wilson: the hero's return.

''I expect it to be a huge commercial success both here and abroad,'' said Irving Azoff, who runs Giant Records. '' I think it's deserving as a candidate to be the best comeback ever in the music business. And I'm going to do everything I can with this company to make sure it happens.''

Of course, ''Imagination'' is no ''Pet Sounds.'' Even Mr. Wilson knows that.

''I could never do another 'Pet Sounds,' '' he said. ''But the love I put into it. I used that same love and put it into my album now. It came right out of my heart. This new one, I hope they like it better than 'Pet Sounds' even.''

Mrs. Wilson interrupts him: ''But you have to remember, honey, when you first made 'Pet Sounds,' nobody really liked it.''

WHAT ''Imagination'' sounds like is a very good Brian Wilson solo album, breathtaking in places and weak in others. Full of rich, layered harmonies, addictively sweet choruses and emotions that alternate between the purity of a young child's and the complexity of a man putting together the pieces of a shattered life. In most songs, Mr. Wilson is happy when bathed in sunshine or smiles and sad when people cry or leave him. But at moments, he looks back at his current state with razor precision, as in the dissonant dirge ''Happy Days.'' ''Oh God, the pain I've been going through,'' he begins the song; in the middle, he repeats a lament he must have heard about himself hundreds of times, ''When he was . . . ''; and in the end, he declares, ''Goodbye, blues, happy days are here again.''

Listening to this slickly produced, almost adult contemporary pop album, one might wonder how much of the music Brian Wilson is responsible for and how much of it is a result of the prodding of his producer, Mr. Thomas.

Paul Mertens, who played saxophone on some of the songs, described the recording process thusly: ''Joe was guiding the process but always deferred to what Brian wanted to do. They seemed to have a very good recording relationship. As we were listening to a playback of 'Lay Down Burden,' Brian was humming something to himself and Joe noticed and said, 'Do you have an idea?' Then he had Brian go immediately to the microphone and sing the melody that was going though his head along with the track.''

Mr. Thomas, who met Mr. Wilson when he produced a country music Beach Boys tribute album in 1996, said that at first he felt as if he were being tested by Mr. Wilson. Sometimes Mr. Wilson would come to a recording session, say that ''the vibe isn't right today to work'' and then wait to see if Mr. Thomas would let him take the day off, which, unlike Mr. Wilson's father, he always did '

For a follow-up, Mr. Wilson hopes to record a rock-and-roll album. He doubts, however, that he will perform with the Beach Boys now that Carl is gone, though he may consider recording with them if he and his cousin, Mike Love, the only remaining original Beach Boy, can get along. Either way, pop-music fans can take heart: Brian Wilson will be back again and again and again.

''The guy can really sing,'' Mr. Mertens said, recalling listening to the music in the studio. ''I got emotional when I heard the playback for the first time: here was a guy sitting at the console that looked really tired and really out of it. And then to hear this incredible singing coming out, it blew me away. It made me realize there's still this musical jewel inside him.''

Correction: June 28, 1998, Sunday A picture caption last Sunday with an article about the singer Brian Wilson misidentified a member of the Beach Boys, his former group, shown at the far right. He was David Marks, not Al Jardine.